Chandra X-ray Observatory

In July of 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched with its
heaviest payload to that date. The payload was Chandra, NASA's
new X-ray Observatory named after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, one of the
most prominent astrophysicists of the twentieth century. The Observatory was
deployed by Columbia and then boosted into a high Earth orbit by the
satellite's propulsion system. Chandra has a very unusual orbit.
Most satellites, including the Hubble Space Telescope, orbit in a low
Earth orbit of just a few hundred kilometers altitude. Chandra has
an elliptical orbit which takes it more than 138,000 kilometers from Earth
and then back to within 9600 kilometers of Earth. Chandra travels
more than one-third of the way to the Moon with each orbit! It takes
64 hours and 18 minutes to make one orbit. Because Chandra spends the
majority of its orbit above the belts of charged particles which surround
Earth, the satellite is able to provide long periods of observing time to
astronomers. As of January 2009, Chandra is still in service and providing scientists with an amazing new view of our universe.

Chandra is solar powered and has three major parts. The X-ray telescope contains eight mirrors that focus the X-rays emitted by space objects. The scientific instruments on-board the satellite include a high-resolution camera that records the X-ray images and a spectrometer that determines the energy level of the X-rays. The spacecraft itself provides a safe environment for the telescope and the instruments to work. The telescope is operated by remote control from the Chandra Flight Operations Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Chandra records observations of the universe in the high-energy end
of the electromagnetic spectrum. The X-ray images that Chandra
records are twenty-five times sharper than previous X-ray images taken by
other telescopes. Chandra's extraordinary capabilities make it
possible for scientists to study such high-energy objects as supernovae and
black holes in greater detail. The satellite has the ability to record X-rays
from clouds of gas with temperatures measuring in the millions of degrees.
It can also observe gas clouds that are so large it takes light five million
years to travel across the cloud. Chandra's resolution is so
powerful that you could read a stop sign from a distance of over nineteen
kilometers!

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